Publication Metadata and Typography Implementation Plan

For agentic workers: REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use superpowers:subagent-driven-development (recommended) or superpowers:executing-plans to implement this plan task-by-task. Steps use checkbox (- [ ]) syntax for tracking.

Goal: Simplify 2026 publication labels, allow venue-less preprints, and visually distinguish author names from titles.

Architecture: Keep publication content in _data/publications.yml, extend its validation so venue is optional, and make the shared Liquid include conditionally render venue metadata. Add one focused Sass partial for author typography and import it through the existing main stylesheet.

Tech Stack: Jekyll 3.10, Liquid, YAML, Sass, Ruby Minitest

Global Constraints

• Display SIGIR 2026, RecSys 2026, COLM 2026, and CIKM 2026 exactly.
• Do not render Accepted, KDD submission, Preprint posted July 30, 2026, or arXiv (2022).
• Keep title and authors required; make venue optional.
• Do not render empty venue markup or extra blank lines.
• Render authors in the existing typeface at 0.92em with modestly reduced opacity.
• Apply the same shared rendering to the home page and Publications page.

Task 1: Publication metadata and optional venue schema

Files:

• Modify: test/publications_data_test.rb
• Modify: _data/publications.yml

Interfaces:

• Consumes: YAML records with title, authors, optional venue, optional note, and optional links.

• Produces: validated records whose two preprints may omit venue and whose 2026 labels match the approved copy.

• Step 1: Write failing metadata tests

Change required fields and add literal expected metadata:

REQUIRED_FIELDS = %w[title authors].freeze
EXPECTED_REVISED_METADATA = {
  "Semantic IDs for Recommender Systems at Snapchat: Use Cases, Technical Challenges, and Design Choices" =>
    { "venue" => "SIGIR 2026", "note" => nil },
  "Exploiting ID-Text Complementarity via Ensembling for Sequential Recommendation" =>
    { "venue" => "RecSys 2026", "note" => nil },
  "CoSearch: Joint Training of Reasoning and Document Ranking via Reinforcement Learning for Agentic Search" =>
    { "venue" => "COLM 2026", "note" => nil },
  "Training-Free LLM-Based Recommendation with Post-LLM Item Refinement Using Collaborative Signals" =>
    { "venue" => "CIKM 2026", "note" => nil },
  "LLM-Based Generative Retrieval for Snapchat Content Recommendation" =>
    { "venue" => nil, "note" => nil },
  "Optimal spend rate estimation and pacing for ad campaigns with budgets" =>
    { "venue" => nil, "note" => nil }
}.freeze

def test_revised_publication_metadata
  records_by_title = records.to_h { |record| [record["title"], record] }

  EXPECTED_REVISED_METADATA.each do |title, expected|
    record = records_by_title.fetch(title)
    assert_equal expected["venue"], record["venue"], title
    assert_equal expected["note"], record["note"], title
  end
end

def test_present_venues_are_non_empty_text
  records.each do |record|
    next unless record.key?("venue")

    assert_kind_of String, record["venue"], record.inspect
    refute_empty record["venue"].strip, record.inspect
  end
end

• Step 2: Run the data test and verify RED

Run:

env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" ruby test/publications_data_test.rb

Expected: FAIL because the old labels, notes, and preprint venues are still present.

• Step 3: Apply the approved YAML changes

Update the affected records to these values:

venue: "SIGIR 2026"

venue: "RecSys 2026"

venue: "COLM 2026"

venue: "CIKM 2026"

Delete the RecSys and COLM note fields. Delete both venue and note from the LLM-Based Generative Retrieval preprint. Delete venue from the Optimal Spend Rate preprint.

• Step 4: Run the data test and verify GREEN

Run:

env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" ruby test/publications_data_test.rb

Expected: PASS with zero failures and zero errors.

• Step 5: Commit the metadata task

git add test/publications_data_test.rb _data/publications.yml
git commit -m "content: simplify publication metadata"

Task 2: Conditional metadata renderer and author typography

Files:

• Modify: test/rendered_site_test.rb
• Modify: _includes/publications-list.html
• Create: _sass/layout/_publications.scss
• Modify: assets/css/main.scss

Interfaces:

• Consumes: publication records from Task 1, including records without venue.

• Produces: .publication-authors spans for every record and .publication-venue strong elements only for non-empty venues.

• Step 1: Write failing rendered-site tests

Add assertions that inspect the built home and Publications pages:

def test_authors_have_dedicated_typography_hook
  expected_count = records.length

  PAGES.each do |relative_path|
    html = page(relative_path)
    assert_equal expected_count, html.scan(/class="publication-authors"/).length, relative_path
  end
end

def test_venue_less_preprints_do_not_render_empty_venue_markup
  venue_less_titles = records.select { |record| record["venue"].nil? }.map { |record| record["title"] }

  PAGES.each do |relative_path|
    html = page(relative_path)
    list_items = html.scan(/<li>.*?<\/li>/m)

    venue_less_titles.each do |title|
      item = list_items.find { |candidate| candidate.include?(title) }
      refute_nil item, title
      refute_includes item, "publication-venue", title
      refute_match(/<strong(?:\s+[^>]*)?>\s*<\/strong>/m, item, title)
    end
  end
end

• Step 2: Build and run the rendered test to verify RED

Run:

env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build
env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" SITE_DIR="_site" ruby test/rendered_site_test.rb

Expected: FAIL because the author class and conditional venue class do not exist.

• Step 3: Add semantic renderer classes and conditional venue output

In both publication loops, render:

<br>
<span class="publication-authors"></span>

Keep optional notes adjacent to venue metadata and render no note when absent. Preserve link rendering and the Training-Free no-link behavior.

• Step 4: Add focused Sass styling

Create _sass/layout/_publications.scss:

.publication-authors {
  font-size: 0.92em;
  opacity: 0.82;
}

Import it after layout/page in assets/css/main.scss:

"layout/page",
"layout/publications",
"layout/archive",

• Step 5: Build and run rendered tests to verify GREEN

Run:

env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build
env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" SITE_DIR="_site" ruby test/rendered_site_test.rb

Expected: PASS with zero failures and zero errors.

• Step 6: Commit the renderer and typography task

git add test/rendered_site_test.rb _includes/publications-list.html _sass/layout/_publications.scss assets/css/main.scss
git commit -m "style: refine publication metadata hierarchy"

Task 3: Site-relative stylesheet URLs

Files:

• Modify: test/rendered_site_test.rb
• Modify: _includes/head.html
• Modify: _includes/head/custom.html

Interfaces:

• Consumes: the generated main and Academicons stylesheets.

• Produces: site-relative stylesheet URLs that resolve to local assets in preview and to the same paths on the production domain.

• Step 1: Add a failing rendered-output test

Assert that both stylesheet links use /assets/css/... paths and do not use the production hostname.

• Step 2: Run the rendered test to verify RED

Expected: FAIL because the shared head prepends site.url through base_path.

• Step 3: Use Jekyll’s relative_url filter for stylesheet links

/assets/css/main.css
/assets/css/academicons.css

• Step 4: Rebuild and run the rendered test to verify GREEN

Expected: PASS with both local stylesheet paths present.

Task 4: Full verification and local preview

Files:

• Verify only; no source changes expected.

Interfaces:

• Consumes: completed Tasks 1 and 2.

• Produces: a clean feature branch and refreshed local previews ready for review.

• Step 1: Run the complete automated verification

env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" ruby test/publications_data_test.rb
env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" ruby test/repository_cleanup_test.rb
env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build
env PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" SITE_DIR="_site" ruby test/rendered_site_test.rb
git diff --check origin/master...HEAD
git status --short --branch

Expected: all tests and build exit zero, diff check emits no output, and status shows no uncommitted changes.

• Step 2: Refresh and inspect both local routes

Refresh http://127.0.0.1:4000/ and http://127.0.0.1:4000/publications/. Verify the four revised venue labels, absence of removed metadata, venue-less preprints without blank lines, and the subtler author typography on desktop and narrow layouts.

• Step 3: Keep the feature branch unpushed

Do not push or merge until the user approves the refreshed preview.